Q9 - Some managers think that the best way

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Uneven competition leads to the "weaker" employee to be anxious and insecure. Therefore, pitting your employees against it other might not maximize performance.

Answer Anticipation:
If there's competition, employees might be anxious and insecure. However, the conclusion is about their performance. The argument never connects these feelings to decreased performance, so that's what the answer will do.

Note that the conclusion brings up a new term - "maximizing performance." While that term does show up in the argument, it's a part of the opposing point. Since the author herself never addresses it, it's not a part of her argument, and thus the correct answer will almost certainly address it.

Correct answer:
(D)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Out of scope. There is no "winning" in the argument - just improved performance.

(B) Out of scope. Winning/the most effort aren't the same as maxmiming performance. Maybe performance is maximized when people put in less than full effort (going 100% all the time sounds exhausting).

(C) Illegal Negation. The argument is about those who don't think they can win, so this answer is an inversion of what's going on in the argument.

(D) Perfect. While it doesn't mention anxiety, it only has to connect a premise to the conclusion, not everything mentioned. This answer is also just strong enough to make the argument work ("can" in the stimulus; "can" in the answer). That's a general pattern in Sufficient Assumption questions.

(E) Out of scope. Undermining each other isn't a part of the argument. This answer also doesn't discuss performance maximization, which the correct answer needs to do. (One can perform better than another despite both people performing maximally.)

Takeaway/Pattern:
Look for that new term in the conclusion! If a term only shows up in the opposing point, then it's considered new for the author's argument.

Also, correct answers to Sufficient Assumption questions don't need to use all the premises (though they often do), and they're generally just strong enough to get you to the conclusion (in other words, the logical force of the conclusion generally matches that of the correct answer).

#officialexplanation